Israeli settlers at a wedding party cheer burning of Palestinian baby

Israeli wedding-goers rejoice over the killing of a Palestinian baby. (Screenshot: Channel 10)

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A group of extremist Israelis recorded themselves rejoicing at a wedding party over the killing of a Palestinian baby, stabbing his photograph. Footage of the incident aired on Israeli news stations last night.

At the wedding in a West Bank settlement, settlers waved knives and guns in the air while singing “we will take revenge on the Palestinians.” One party-goer then raised and struck an image of Ali Dawabshe, the 18-month old Palestinian burned alive on July 31 in the village of Duma in an arson attack. Another celebrant waved a faux molotov cocktail in the air, the weapon used in the deadly blasts.

Dawabshe’s mother and father later succumbed to injuries sustained in the blasts, bringing the fatality toll to three. The family is survived by four-year old Ahmad Dawabshe who continues to recover from wounds inflicted during the attack inside of an Israeli hospital.

Israeli police announced today an investigation into the wedding celebrators for the charge of incitement.

The one-minute video first aired on Israel’s channel 10 and was quickly decried by Israeli leaders who are in the throes of a row with hardline Jews who support the alleged assailants of the fatal firebombing.

“The shocking pictures that were broadcast this evening show the true face of a group that constitutes a danger to Israeli society and to the security of Israel,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last night, “We are not prepared to accept people who deny the laws of the state and do not view themselves as subject to them. The pictures underscore how important a strong ISA [Israel Securities Authority] is to the security of us all.”

Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin, the recipient of death threats from extremist Israelis after denouncing violence against Palestinians in the wake of the attack on the Dawabshe house, said the recording was a “sickening video.”

“I support the clear moral position voiced by the political leadership and the Israeli public, their firm stand against incitement, and their support for the security service personnel,” Rivlin continued, drawing support for Israel’s police forces who have come under protests in recent days by extremists. Some protesters back the killing of the Palestinian family. Others say an innocent person is in custody.

Earlier this week a suspect detained without charge for the murder of the Dawabshe family confessed to the crime and made a reenactment of the murder for Israeli police. Yet Israel’s far-right rejected the admission of guilt when a lawyer for the unidentified suspect—his name is under gag order—claimed his client made a false confession. Itamar Ben Gvir said the suspect confessed under duress following 20 days of questioning where he was physically and sexually abused.

The spat between the unidentified suspect’s supporters and Israeli security services widened on Monday when rightists protested outside the house of the former head of the Shin Beit, Israel’s version of a federal intelligence bureau. Hours later unknown assailants attacked a Palestinian house outside of Ramallah by launching tear gas canisters marked with the words “revenge,” tagging the house with the taunt “hello from the prisoners of Zion.”

Thanks to Dorgham Abusalim.

About Allison Deger

Allison Deger is the Assistant Editor of Mondoweiss.net. Follow her on twitter at @allissoncd.

This is the second video I’ve seen – in as many days – of a ‘wedding party’ which resembles more a war dance than anything associated with a festive and joyous occasion. A hysterical frenzy , with the participants driving one another into a state of collective madness, which I didn’ think was possible except under the influence of some hallucinogenic drug, or, like some tribes in the jungles of S. America, of chewing on leaves bearing psychotic properties. Scary, to say the least.

Not only has he denied it, but a high ranking Israeli police officer and psychologist who interviewed him numerous times believes his denial, and bases it partly on forensic reports that the child was shot.

From a Haaretz article from 2009:

You also met with Samir Kuntar of the Palestine Liberation Front, who murdered members of the Haran family in Nahariya and was released as part of the deal with Hezbollah that brought back the bodies of the two abducted soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

“We turned Kuntar into God-knows-what – the murderer of Danny Haran and his daughter, Einat. The man who smashed in the girl’s head. That’s nonsense. A story. A fairy tale. He told me he didn’t do it and I believe him. I investigated the event within the framework of the next book I am writing, about hostage-taking incidents. As far as I am concerned, it was no more than a newspaper report. I sat with him; he was very intelligent. He was a squad commander at 17. He told me that his motive for infiltrating Nahariya was to take hostages. He said [his organization] knew that would both humiliate Israel and get them media publicity.

“He told me: ‘If I had wanted to kill Danny and his daughter, I would have shot them in the house. I took them to the boat because I wanted hostages. I had no interest in hurting them. After I got them into the boat, wild gunfire started and I went back to help my squad on the shore. Danny, the father, kept shouting, “Stop firing, you crazy people.” He and his daughter were found shot in the boat. I was on a small rise, shooting at your forces, and the boat was 20 meters away in the water, with Danny and the girl.'”

So you say that Kuntar did not murder Haran and his daughter?

“That is what he says, and in my opinion there is support for the fact that they were killed by fire from the Israeli rescue forces. You can accuse him all you like, but it was obviously the rescue forces that opened fire. There were all kinds of legends about Kuntar. People also said that he would return to being a terrorist [after his release]. Nonsense. He told me then explicitly that he would not go back to terrorism, that he was too old to execute operations – and that’s also clear. For the same reason, I see no problem in releasing terrorists with blood on their hands in return for [kidnapped soldier] Gilad Shalit. I get the feeling the country is waiting for his body.

This is utterly disgusting. Nutty can pretend he is concerned and condemn this ugly, reprehensive video of killers rejoicing the murder of an innocent baby, but we know that he has aided and abetted these scumbags. He gives these murderers the weapons, and they know they can burn, attack, firebomb, and do any damn thing they want, and they will get away with it. Nutty and his zio leaders are so good at collective punishment of Palestinians, and massacres thousands when a rocket goes that way, and yet it is hard to accept the fact that he can do nothing about the scum that grows in these illegal settlements. It is strange that the mighty Israeli armed forces cannot do anything when it comes to the poison in the illegal settlements.

Absolutely right on the mark Kay24! Thumbs up to you. The cause of all this is Netanyahu,Lieberman,Bennett,Yaalon,Hotovely and Livni and ALL previous Israeli Governments who have continued to violate International Law and continued to build illegal settlements in Occupied Territory. Netanyahu is responsible during his long term as PM for the biggest upsurge in settlement building and settler violence in Israel’s history. He has undermined and made a mockery of the Peace Process and endangered the Diaspora Jews through his actions in the process. And the World leaders like Obama and Cameron need to hold their heads in shame for not taking decisive action against Israel for its murderous and lawless behaviour. Both America and UK have the capacity to hold Israel to account and end the Occupation but like total spineless leaders they have withheld taking such action. Every drop of Palestinian Blood spilled during Netanyahu’s leadership is smeared liberally over Obama and Cameron’s hands. Hopefully World Leaders will have the testicular fortitude in the New Year to put an end to Israel’s antics and force it to withdraw to its accepted and recognised borders of 1948. That is the only solution to end the violence. Place a multi national force on the ground to enforce the borders and keep the peace. Israel is incapable of abiding by its agreements and International Law so it needs to be sidelined in order to enforce peace. No more pussyfooting.

Inbound 39, you are right on the money too. I could not have said it better. How long will the US/UK/UN keep pretending Israel is still interested in abiding by international laws, and peace, and go along with its total BS? We have got to be the naivest nations to not see that Israel says one thing, and does another, completely the opposite? What do these illegal settlements keep springing up, and the occupation that never ends, mean to peace and sincerity, and why is it that no American leader cannot come to the conclusion that Israel wants to steal, build, massacre, lie, control, and use excessive force on unarmed civilians, and wants the status quo rather than peace and give back what it has stolen from these poor people? This pretense must stop, and this sick relationship we have with one of the most despised nations in the world, ended.

Every American leader who has failed to stop this pariah nation, should be ashamed of having not done so, and every zionist leader who have continues these crimes should be damned and treated like a war criminal.

“The shocking pictures that were broadcast this evening show the true face of a group that constitutes a danger to Israeli society and to the security of Israel,” said Butcher Bibi.

And his sentiments were repeated throughout the political spectrum, never mind the threats they pose to Palestinians they’re a threat to Israel! To the Jewish people! And the result of all this denunciations? You guessed it, more power to the security establishment. At this rate they’ll have the power to torture everyone!

Spot on indeed. I still hope that many Israelis will begin to see that that Israel as we know it implies settlements and that settlements imply ruthless terror – and will do something about it. Over history others have become involved in projects that went wrong and have come to see that things must be put right to what extent is possible. It’s Christnas, so peace and goodwill to all on Mondoweiss.

A) They’re Israeli Jews illegally in non-Israeli territories
B) The Israeli Government has encouraged them to become illegal settlers
C) There will very likely be no charges laid
D) No collective punishment
E) No deportation back to Israel (or the USA or wherever the scum came from)

The difference is Palestinians are in and fighting for their own territory. These scummy Israelis are not in their own country, they covet other folk’s territory and they advocate killing children in order to steal. They’re not Jews by any moral standard

The difference is for the few Palestinians who might have committed a vile act, Israel commits collective punishment on a grand scale

The difference is Israel punishes all Palestinians for & with vile Israeli acts

@talknic, an example for you and unsurprising to note that your example from Abbas dates back to 2011. The Palestinian cause is not edified by their repeated violence (going back to the 1920 Nebi Musa riots) which means Israel has no choice but to adopt its steadfast position.

Here’s the twisted, biased double-standard:
– Non-Zionists at MW support justice, accountability and equality in I-P and elsewhere.
– Zionists at MW – like all other Zio-supremacists – may support justice, accountability and equality elsewhere, but none of them – not one of them, not a single one – supports justice, accountability and equality in I-P.

Of course. Words are cheap. Action, not so much. And I’m referring not only to the Israeli govt with its ‘for-international-consumption’ condemnations, but especially to the US govt who, at best, condemns Israeli atrocities as ‘not helpful’ or ‘counterproductive’. Ouch, that must really hurt.

The Palestinian cause is not edified by their repeated violence (going back to the 1920 Nebi Musa riots) which means Israel has no choice but to adopt its steadfast position

The early Zionists’ “steadfast position” (i.e. violence) predated the Nebi Musa riot in 1920. The JNF was already forcibly removing non-Jewish tenant farmers from purchased land, in violation of the tenant farmers’ rights. The second aliyah, from 1904 to 1914, had already developed the ideology of the “conquest of land” and the “conquest of labor” which involved the forcible removal of Arab non-Jewish laborers from Jewish colonies and businesses, and the boycotting of non-Jewish produce and products.

I’ll quote yet again David Hacohen, an early Zionist and later a leader of the Mapai party.

I remember being one of the first of our comrades to go to London after the First World War … There I became a socialist … When I joined the socialist students – English, Irish, Jewish, Chinese, Indian, African – we found that we were all under English domination or rule.

And even here, in these intimate surroundings, I had to fight my friends on the issue of Jewish socialism, to defend the fact that I would not accept Arabs in my trade union, the Histadrut; to defend preaching to housewives that they not buy at Arab stores; to defend the fact that we stood guard at orchards to prevent Arab workers from getting jobs there. … To pour kerosene on Arab tomatoes; to attack Jewish housewives in the markets and smash the Arab eggs they had bought; to praise to the skies the Kereen Kayemet [Jewish Fund] that sent Hanlon to Beirut to buy land from absentee effendi [landlords] and to throw the fellahin[peasants] off the land – to buy dozens of dunams 12 from an Arab is permitted, but to sell, God forbid, one Jewish dunam to an Arab is prohibited; to take Rothschild, the incarnation of capitalism, as a socialist and to name him the “benefactor” – to do all that was not easy. And despite the fact that we did it – maybe we had no choice – I wasn’t happy about it 13.
– See more at: http://www.matzpen.org/english/1972-02-10/introduction/#sthash.rwqnbfNc.dpuf

Zionist colonialism was not the result of any actions by the indigenous Palestinians. The ideology was already in force way before 1920.

I had seen a video 3 or 4 days ago of was a wedding party where the men at the party did the circle jerk, dancing and jumping, stabbing knives in the air excitedly and reciting supposed prayer of Samson. I don’t know if this is traditional wedding behavior of the Yitzkar settlement or not, but I’m believing less and less that this behavior and the beliefs of these murderers only represents the so-called “fringe” of Israeli society. These seem like the israeli equivalent of the SA/SS, doing the murderous work of the wealthy elites who refuse to get their own hands dirty but insist everyone else does. The impotent response by the SoI is proof.

Israel Cracks Down on Lehava, a Group Tied to Anti-Arab Acts
By ISABEL KERSHNER DEC. 16, 2014

Benzion Gopstein, the leader of Lehava, was among 10 members of the group arrested Tuesday on suspicion of incitement. Credit Gali Tibbon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Itamar Ben-Gvir, a lawyer representing the 10 suspects, called the arrests a “disgrace,” saying the police had capitulated to pressure from leftist politicians “even though it is clear to them that this is a legal organization that operates openly against assimilation.”

Mr. Ben-Gvir, who is a prominent ultranationalist activist, also represents the three men charged with arson: a 22-year-old man from Jerusalem and two brothers, ages 20 and 18, from the ultra-Orthodox settlement of Beitar Illit in the West Bank. Mr. Ben-Gvir said they confessed after their interrogators from the Shin Bet internal security agency threatened them.

The nighttime arson attack at the Max Rayne Hand in Hand school prompted condemnation across the Israeli political spectrum. Two empty classrooms were set on fire. Graffiti sprayed on an outside wall included the slogans “Death to Arabs,” “No coexistence with cancer,” “Kahane was right,” and “Stop assimilation.”

Among those arrested on Tuesday was Benzion Gopstein, the leader of Lehava. Mr. Gopstein, a Kahane disciple, was filmed at his daughter’s wedding last year as young revelers sang “Kahane lives!” Asked by a reporter for Israel’s Channel 2 news what would happen if there were an Arab waiter present, a grinning Mr. Gopstein replied that he would not be serving the food but rather “would likely be looking for the closest hospital.” After the main course, some of the guests donned masks and danced with table knives, jabbing them in the air like daggers.

Mr. Gopstein’s wife, Anat, told Ynet, a Hebrew news site, that the police raided their home in a West Bank settlement on the edge of Hebron early Tuesday and took books written by Rabbi Kahane and pictures of him, T-shirts printed with Kahanist and Lehava logos, and computers and cellphones. Video footage showed Mr. Gopstein sitting in handcuffs while the police searched his bookshelves. Asked about the school arson, Mrs. Gopstein said her husband was “opposed to illegal activity.”

Lehava has recently raised its profile, feeding on public anger fanned by the 50-day war against Hamas in Gaza in the summer and a recent wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the West Bank.

The police also arrested eight Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem this week on suspicion of spreading incitement on social media. The police said that the suspects had praised the attacks on Israelis and encouraged further attacks, and that they had been photographed posing with guns. Israel has also accused the Palestinian Authority leadership of incitement to violence.

Lehava’s activities stretch back several years and are documented in a recent report titled “Racism and Gender in Israel” by the Israel Religious Action Center and the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism, groups active against racism. In May 2011, Lehava posted fliers in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem denouncing a supermarket chain that employed Arabs, with the slogan, “Do you want your grandson to be called Ahmad Ben Sarah?” The group began distributing “kosher certificates” to businesses that did not employ Arabs.

Racial incitement is punishable by up to five years in prison, according to Moshe Negbi, the legal expert for Israel Radio.

A coalition of anti-racist groups has petitioned Israel’s Supreme Court against the state attorney, Lehava and Mr. Gopstein. Among other things, according to the petition, Mr. Gopstein praised the Jewish teenagers who attacked Palestinian youths in downtown West Jerusalem in August 2012 and left one 17-year-old unconscious and hospitalized. Around the same time, Lehava distributed fliers warning Arab men not to date Jewish girls. The court case is pending.

Anat Hoffman, the executive director of the Israel Religious Action Center, said the first complaint against Lehava had been made four years ago. “Under the guise of fighting intermarriage in Israel they are distributing plain old racism,” Ms. Hoffman said, adding that Jewish-Arab intermarriage was a marginal phenomenon.

The group made headlines in August when it tried to disrupt the wedding of an Arab groom from Jaffa and his Jewish-born bride, who had converted to Islam. The groom had asked for a court injunction against the group’s planned protest outside the wedding hall in the Tel Aviv suburb of Rishon Lezion, but the court allowed the protest on the condition it was confined to a parking lot about 200 yards away. Despite being publicized for days in the mainstream Israeli news media, the demonstration attracted only about 300 activists.

Representatives of Lehava denied having a racist agenda and said they were interested only in what they called the preservation of the Jewish nation, but some of the demonstrators chanted “Death to Arabs” and other hate slogans. About 150 counterdemonstrators stood across the road from the wedding holding flowers and heart-shaped signs congratulating the couple.

When Kachs terrorist group was outlawed Israel made an undertaking to also outlaw Kahanists……another broken agreement. Lieberman was Kachs and he ends up Foreign Minister…..Israel is a total farce and a joke.

If this video showed Muslims stabbing a picture of a dead baby every other yokel commenting on websites would be posting “Religion of Peace?” asking why we don’t just nuke them away. MEMRI would be posting this far and wide to let us all know what terrible people Muslims are. Because, you know, everything some crazed Muslim does or says is representative of all Muslims, but this case is just a tiny minority of Jews, totally unrepresentative of the larger Jewish population. No double standard, none at all.

/Speaking of MEMRI, is there a site or organization dedicated to reviewing the Hebrew language/Zionist press to find nuggets like this so that they can be translated and distributed around the world? If there isn’t, there should be.

/Speaking of MEMRI, is there a site or organization dedicated to reviewing the Hebrew language/Zionist press to find nuggets like this so that they can be translated and distributed around the world? If there isn’t, there should be.

“The shocking pictures that were broadcast this evening show the true face of a group that constitutes a danger to Israeli society and to the security of Israel,” said the head of the murder gang.
He added: “We are not prepared to accept people who deny the real laws of the state and get caught on camera, endangering American handouts. The pictures underscore how important it is that all murders be committed under the strict control of a strong ISA [Israel Securities Authority] and the Invasion and Destruction Forces.”

John O,
“Israel” IS the occupation. There is no other aspect of it that better summarizes what Zionism is about. It’s not like an appendage or growth that will destroy… what? The same srtttlements and occupation of an earlier date? There is no legitimate “Israel” anywhere, it’s all occupation.

“The shocking pictures that were broadcast this evening show the true face of a group that constitutes a danger to Israeli society and to the security of Israel,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu late last night, “We are not prepared to accept people who deny the laws of the state and do not view themselves as subject to them. The pictures underscore how important a strong ISA [Israel Securities Authority] is to the security of us all.”

“palestinians celebrate the death of innocent civilians … “

Examples please

” if the handful of them who were outraged said anything to the news, they too would be dead civilians”

Odd. Abbas lives. He’s condemned all forms of terrorism many times. BTW Do you actually have any evidence to back your assertion?

As is well-documented, last summer quite large numbers of Israelis Jews took sofas, beer (and maybe popcorn too) to a hilltop in order to get the best possible view of the slaughter happening just a few kilometres away. When bombs exploded – very likely killing civilians, including children – they whooped and hollered in joy.

Can you link to the official condemnations of this delight in the deaths of children? You can’t, because these killings were state-sanctioned, and approved by the overwhelming majority of Israeli Jews. There has never been a time when killing Palestinians has not been very popular among ‘ordinary’ Israelis, including those who consider themselves ‘liberal’ and ‘left-wing’. Every single one of Israel’s many wars has had extremely high approval ratings among Israeli Jews. Seems they are quite happy to ‘celebrate the death of innocent civilians’.

This “Retribution Song” is really a guy bellowing. I couldn’t detect a melody. The two key Biblical verses which get the goons really going are:
1) “The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their food from God” (Psalm 104:21). The preceding verse is: “Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth” which sounds ominous in this context. These young men, including many minors, have taken on the role of “devouring” their Palestinian prey under the cover of darkness. What is perverse is that Psalm 104 is well known to traditional Jews from the liturgy where it as an ode to the glory of nature.
2) “that I may be this once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes” (Judges 16:28). As the Israeli TV reporter points out, the song changes ‘Philistines’ (“Plishteem” in Hebrew) to ‘Palestinians’ (“Palestina’eem”). It appears at the end of the Samson story just before Samson commits suicide in a mass killing of the Philistine brass. The full verse reads: “And Samson called unto the LORD, and said: ‘O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray Thee, and strengthen me, I pray Thee, only this once, O God, that I may be this once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes.” These thugs, like all good bullies, see themselves as the victims.
I agree with the comments that the Israeli government is turning a blind eye to this. They dress distinctively with super-sized skullcaps and a combination of the long locks of the ultra-Orthodox with the white shirt of the settlers and modern Orthodox.
The KKK hid behind hoods. These men know they are safe in Israel.

Thanks to the country’s mainstream, the West Bank has become the land of unlimited possibilities for the average Israeli Jew. This is the soil that gave rise to those young dancers with their bouncing sidelocks and their guns.

Israeli defense minister: Israeli right must do some soul-searching over Jewish terror

The horror expressed by the Israeli mainstream at the “blood wedding” video is more repulsive than the clip itself. The shock is at the messianic, disruptive representation of the settlement enterprise, the handiwork of successive generations of the Israeli mainstream.

The police are shocked. Every month on Rosh Hodesh, the start of the Hebrew month, a “sivuv she’arim” is held in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. The ceremonial circling of the gates of the Temple Mount, accompanied by shofar-blowing and reading of Psalms, is organized by El Har Hamor, a nonprofit association that seeks to rebuild the Temple. The Israel Police provide security for the event, which takes place between shuttered Palestinian stores. Men in white kippot dance, sidelocks bouncing – just like in the video – and pound on the closed doors.

According to documentation from October, they also sing songs similar to the ones in the video (“Burn down the mosque” and “We will avenge one of the two eyes of Palestine, curse them”), and while the Arabs shut themselves into their homes, the dancers chant “Death to Arabs.” Not only are the police there, they also try to prevent leftists from recording the events.

Open and shut cases

The Judea and Samaria district police are shocked. This is the police district that systematically closes investigations of Israeli violence against Palestinians. Out of 1,104 investigations opened after Palestinians complained of violent injury or property damage over a 10-year period, from 2005 to August 2015, 940, or 91.6 percent, were closed without charges being filed, according to the Yesh Din legal defense NGO. In 85 percent of the cases, the closure was due to failure of the police investigation. The reason given in 624 of the cases was “offender unknown,” while in 208 cases it was “insufficient evidence.”

Examples? On Passover Eve 2011, a group of Israelis injured Bruce Lee Eid of Burin, a village south of Nablus. One of the Israelis shot Eid, wounding him severely in the abdomen and right hand. This attack was one of many designed to prevent the villagers from building on their lands. Soldiers fired tear gas at Palestinians who came to defend their neighbor. The incident was filmed, the origin of the assailants (the Givat Ronen outpost) was known, but the case was closed.

In another case, from October 2011, a few Israeli Jews from Combatants for Peace accompanied Palestinians from the village of Jalud on their first olive harvest in 10 years. In all those years the Israel Defense Forces (were they also shocked by the wedding video?) had kept them from working their laands. Soldiers fired tear gas at Palestinians who came to defend their neighbor. The incident was filmed, the origin of the assailants (the Givat Ronen outpost) was known, …

Masked Israelis, accompanied by an armed, unmasked Israeli in civilian clothes (perhaps the security coordinator) came, threw a stun grenade, fired into the air and attacked the harvesters with clubs, injuring three Israelis and two Palestinians. Soldiers and Border Police officers who were there fired tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians. The case was closed despite the wounded Israelis and the presence of soldiers who were witnesses.

The culture of “unknown offenders,” “insufficient evidence” and do-nothing soldiers nurtured the atmosphere of “we can run riot and no one will touch us” seen in the wedding video.

Here’s a less-than-wild guess: The justices of the High Court of Justice are also “shocked” by the video. Two out of three justices last week allowed a person who was convicted of assaulting a Palestinian youth to continue to offend against a different Palestinian, by cultivating a vineyard on private Palestinian land. With the High Court’s approval, five years after appropriating land that did not belong to him, Zvi Strock, son of Habayit Hayehudi MK Orit Strock, can continue to keep Fawzi Ibrahim off his land for another year.

Strock did not return the land, a full year after an IDF appeals committee ordered him to do so. Now he is requesting an additional one-year extension so that the process can be done “peacefully.” That sounds like a clear threat: If he is removed earlier, it will not be peaceful. The mainstream (the state and the High Court) heard the threat, and knuckled under.

Netanyahu ‘shocked,’ too

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is shocked, and the Defense Ministry is shocked. With their approval, dozens of bulldozers continue to nibble with the avarice of real-estate sharks at the land of dozens of Palestinian villages, in order to build homes for Jews. Go to Modi’in Ilit, to Alei Zahav, Barkan, Ariel. Without dancing or bouncing sidelocks, the state is doing much more than the “blood wedding” dancers could.

Thanks to the mainstream, the West Bank has become the land of unlimited possibilities for the average Israeli Jew. It’s a substitute for the welfare state that they ground down with a devotion that would do honor to Milton Friedman. This is the soil that gave rise to those young dancers with their bouncing peiyot and their guns.

Their messianism was born of the incessant secular Israeli disregard for international law and justice, which prohibit settlements in occupied territory. Their deranged messianism is fed by the consistent, deranged political objective of the settlement enterprise: to thwart the possibility of living in equality and peace with the Palestinian people in this land. Fed by and feeding.

While I am certainly being tongue in cheek the Irish claim to the region is no less ludicrous than the claim used by Israelis to disposses the actual inhabitants of the region. It also shows the silliness and danger of such claims by certain ethnic or religious groups.

The war crimes and crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the rogue regime(s) governing Israel need to be stopped. It is a crime. There is no room for debate. The criminals need to be held to account. The Palestinian people deserve the same rights as other people. Their human rights are not something that can be agreed to, or granted by, Israel. Israeli security does not trump other peoples basic human rights.

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